Wool (science Explorers)

Wool Electronic book published by ipicturebooks.com 24 W. 25th St. New York, NY 10010 For more ebooks, visit us at: http://www.ipicturebooks.com All rights reserved Text copyright © 2000 Nicola Edwards and Jane Harris Photographs copyright © 2000 Julian Cornish-Trestrail No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. e-ISBN 1-59019-857-3 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available ISBN 0-7136-5348-5 Exploring the science of everyday materials Nicola Edwards and Jane Harris Photographs by Julian Cornish-Trestrail Look at these things we’ve collected. 2 They are all made from wool. Even the tip of my colouring pen is made from wool. 3 Most wool comes from sheep. It’s the sheep’s springy coat. This is raw wool. It‛s a bit greasy. 4 We’re looking at some sheep’s wool through a magnifying glass. Can you see lots of curly hairs? 5 Sheep are shorn once a year. Their wool coats are washed and dried, then combed to remove the tangles. Don‛t worry, it doesn‛t hurt! 6 This wool has been dyed blue. A machine is twisting it into long pieces of thread. 7 Look at all these balls of wool. They have been dyed different colours and some threads are thicker than others. I‛m choosing a light-coloured ball. I‛m choosing a dark-coloured ball. 8 Wool is woven into clothes in factories. You can also knit your own clothes with knitting needles. I‛m helping my mum to knit a scarf! 9 I feel cold, so I’m putting on a woollen jumper. It feels a bit rough on my skin. 10 My scarf is softer than the jumper. It feels warm and smooth. 11 Wool is stretchy. I can pull it out… …and when I let go, it springs back into place! 12 I’m stretching my jumper and looking at it closely. I can see all the threads of wool. Let’s try pulling the raw wool. It’s stretchy, too. It’s also quite strong. I have to pull hard to pull it apart. 14 Woollen clothes keep us warm. The tiny hairs in the wool help stop the heat escaping from our bodies. I feel really snug and warm. 15 We’ve just been outside in the rain. My woollen jumper feels damp on the outside but I’m still dry underneath. Damp wool smells a bit funny. 16 My T-shirt is not made from wool. The rain has soaked through. Yuk! I feel cold and wet. 17 I’m washing my woollen gloves carefully. If the water is too hot, my gloves will shrink! The wool soaks up the water. 18 The gloves feel heavy. My gloves are clean and dry now. They‛re much lighter. 19 Felt is made of wool that has been rolled and pressed together to make it at. This piece of felt has been burnt, but it didn’t catch re. I can see the burnt hairs through the magnifying glass. 20 Fireghters’ uniforms used to contain a special felt. The felt helped protect reghters from the ames. 21 What shall we do with these old jumpers? The wool is still as good as new. 22 Let‛s unpick the wool so that we can use i